In current work environments, interaction between co-workers is becoming increasingly virtual. Transactions that previously occurred face-to-face are becoming more commonly performed via voice and e-mail messages, or through a global computer network or via an intranet web service. While this often greatly increases efficiency and productivity, it has a hidden drawback: there is no longer any “face-to-face” time during which collaborators can exchange information that is not part of a primary transaction. Unit cohesiveness and long-term productivity can suffer when there is no mechanism for physical interaction between team members, or at least interaction via higher bandwidth audio or video conferencing.
Arranging such conferencing time between individuals is currently very difficult, since it requires prior scheduling and coordination of special facilities and dedicated communication links. As the cost of bandwidth declines and connectivity proliferates, however, videoconferencing will become technically feasible on standard desktop computers and web interface devices. The difficulty of scheduling virtual communication will become equivalent to that of arranging physical interaction—that is, finding out whether someone is available to communicate with you at the present time, and if not, to schedule the communication when feasible.
In small office environments, a protocol for communication scheduling is usually carried out by wandering across the hall and seeing if a colleague is in his or her office and not currently occupied with an important task. If a group of people wishes to gather for an impromptu meeting, this can be done informally whenever they see each other to all be physically present. In large office environments spread across many buildings or campuses, or in virtual environments, this becomes infeasible.
Existing solutions for arranging impromptu group communications among physically disparate participants, or for establishing a real-time audio and/or visual communication link, usually involve an equivalent real-time link (e.g. a phone call to see if the person is available. There is no non-intrusive way to simply check if someone is in his or her office and not otherwise occupied in a meeting or other activity, without requiring them to respond to a message, engage a communication link or explicitly specify their state. For example. U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,173, TANG et al., uses an icon 22 (FIG. 9) to indicate a user's activity state. “Buddy lists” and Instant Messaging Presence Protocols (c.f. the IMPP of the Internet Engineering Task Force) are a step towards a solution, but place a burden on the user to signal what mode or activity they are in, and whether they are available. The modes that are relevant to the task of scheduling communication include whether the user was in or out of the office, as well as sub-categories of activity while in the office: whether the user was at a computing device, working at a whiteboard or other surface, meeting with other people, reading something very urgent, on the phone, etc.
These modes are both relevant to the question whether communication is possible now (Is the user present in the office?) and to the question of which is the appropriate method of asking the user if they will “accept the call” and participate in the communication link. The traditional ringing bell of the telephone has long been the notification of a remote user requesting a communication link. Recently, the “caller-ID” service also allows the identity of the remote user to be known before the called party decides whether to accept the call. In most computing environments, pop-up message windows or their equivalent are typically used to notify a user that a “call” is incoming. A prerecorded voice (e.g., “You have a call from Mr. X”) may also be used.
These technologies for call notification disregard the current state of the user's activity, and can thus often be intrusive and annoying. While a pop-up display window is an adequate notice when a user is at their computer, it will clearly be ineffective when they are reading at another chair or working at the whiteboard.
A traditional audible notification would be appropriate in these situations, but is not always appropriate during a meeting. Most typically, when one is in a meeting and a communication link is attempted, the appropriate response is to delay the communication until the current meeting is finished.